Search

1. Why does the average taxpayer care how many tax brackets there are? How difficult is it, really, to look up and do the arithmetic required to calculate how much tax is owed on a certain taxable income?

2. They want to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax – What percent of the American middle class winds up paying the Alternative Minimum Tax on a regular basis? This seems more like a gift to the upper income folks.

3. They want to double the standard deduction, but at the same time they want to delete the $4000/person exemption and reduce what we can deduct when we itemize — maybe down to just mortgage interest and charitable contributions? So what becomes of the other major deductions — medical out-of-pocket, state income tax, and personal property/real estate taxes? These can be significant amounts, and I must believe are regularly used by (or on an emergency basis, or by the elderly, in the case of medical deductions) millions of middle class taxpayers.

If these itemized deductions are removed from the tax code, and exemptions are eliminated (leaving just a $2000 net increase per person in the Standard Deduction – more like a 33% net increase in per-person deductions rather than a doubling), I can devise endless examples of how “common people” will have their taxes actually go up, in spite of the doubling of the Standard Deduction.

I guess we have to find out specifically what changes are proposed to the middle income tax RATES, because without further information, two of the three tax returns I prepare for people may well show increased taxes due.

It is truly amazing, as well as disheartening, that the same liberals who decry hate groups and hate-like behavior are exactly the people who hate Trump so much that they will twist EVERYthing he does or says into something ridiculously erroneous.

If Trump says he is against illegal immigration, Trump-haters say he is against all immigration and is a racist. If Trump says he wants to postpone immigration of people from countries that we have previously identified as major supporters of terrorism, Trump-haters scream that Trump hates all immigrants, and is a racist. If Trump decries violence from whichever side it comes, Trump-haters claim he is supportive of extreme white-nationalism – and is a racist. Even CEOs are distancing themselves from Trump because he states a simple unadulterated truth.

It has gotten so bad that even Republicans and Democrats (and CEOs) who understand what Trump is really saying in these situations criticize him anyway out of fear of being bashed by the liberal Trump-haters (most notably, the media) — or having their companies bashed.

I am no Trump-lover – in fact, I think he is an emotional idiot. But truth is truth, and facts are facts, no matter who brings them forth. Trump twists enough truth and facts without anyone needing to go out of their way to make him look bad (and making themselves look bad by acting as though they are too ignorant to properly interpret a simple sentence).

All of these irrational outcries from Trump-hating liberals and [so-called] conservatives are just about to make me into a hater myself. We in America are making outright fools of ourselves in front of the world.